Healthcare delivery system

Abstract

A healthcare delivery system that embodies methods of empowering collaborative multidisciplinary healthcare and the clinics that support them for providing everyday care to patients with chronic conditions, through in part by eliminating the current referral system to multiple specialists and providing collaborative multidisciplinary healthcare. A healthcare delivery that upends the traditional model where primary care physician, who has an essentially blind first visit with a patient, tries to develop plan of coordinated care in a very fragmented manner by referring patient to multiple specialist as needed. The present invention takes an unconventional ordering of combined steps to deliver improved healthcare drastically different from the traditional model.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. provisional application No. 62 / 238,992, filed Oct. 8, 2015, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. This Continuation-in-part application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. non-provisional application Ser. No. 15 / 281,456, filed Sep. 30, 2016, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to healthcare delivery systems and, more particularly, a healthcare delivery system that embodies methods of empowering collaborative multidisciplinary healthcare for providing care to patients with chronic conditions.[0003]Healthcare spending in the U.S. is about 90% higher per capita than in most other industrial countries. The rising cost of health care is unsustainable. In 2010, healthcare costs consumed approximately 25% of budgets in the education sector and is expected to increase to over 40% by ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is a new way of delivering healthcare services to patients with chronic conditions. It uses technology and collaborative care to provide a better experience for patients. The method includes matching multiple specialists to a patient based on their specialty and the type of chronic condition, providing basic laboratory equipment and removing the need for a primary physician referral. The specialists evaluate the patient's medical history and provide a plan of care tailored to their needs. This approach allows for a more comprehensive and personalized treatment plan for patients with chronic conditions.

Problems solved by technology

The rising cost of health care is unsustainable.

This suggests some substantial communication problems within the subsystem navigated by PCMH.

A lack of clarity on the respective roles of PCP's and specialists undoubtedly may contribute to coordination issues among specialists and PCP's.

Thus, significant fragmentation of care exists for patients with any chronic conditions, especially for patients with multiple chronic conditions.

Moreover, shrinking access to specialists within each insurance network leaves significant gaps and creates barriers to care delivery even with the best primary care coordination.

The shortage of primary care physicians makes it more difficult for special populations, like full-time employees or patients with multiple chronic conditions, to access primary, secondary or tertiary services.

The traditional fee-for-service system lacks efficiency and causes a lot of frustration not only to patients but also to practicing physicians.

Further compounding the problem, the shortage of primary care physicians makes it more difficult for special populations, like full-time employees or patients with multiple chronic conditions, to access primary or secondary preventive services.

The cost of care for patients with chronic conditions is higher than the general population with differences in quality of care stemming from gender and racial differences.

Patients with chronic conditions spend more for healthcare and experience more hardship with paying medical bills while physicians taking care of patients with chronic conditions believe that the needs of these patients are not being met and physicians report difficulties in coordinating care of patients with chronic conditions.

Although specialist care is cited as being at least 10 times more expensive in the US than primary care, the only attempts at decreasing such costs have been through employing a “gate keeping” strategy to primary care, which ultimately results in more inefficiency and greater distrust among patients.

Thus, significant fragmentation of care delivery exists for patients with any chronic conditions, and patients with multiple chronic conditions, who represent 50-70% of the general population, are forced to see three to four different doctors each at different offices.

In short, when primary care physicians coordinate advanced care and send referrals to specialists to secure secondary preventive services the already fragmented healthcare delivery process is made even more inefficient and fragmented for patients, especially those with chronic conditions.

Furthermore, US National Center for Health Statistics describes chronic diseases as illnesses that generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, nor do they just disappear.

Many barriers to care delivery are inherent in this model and include, for example, limited access to specialist, lack of coordination between multiple specialist and increased risk for medical errors due to multiple plans of care presented to the patients by each specialist and PCP.

The diagnosis of chronic conditions, especially multiple chronic conditions, carries very significant increase in cost of care delivery.

These scores are not used in the primary care physician offices since they cannot be applied to direct care delivery, for instance, they cannot be applied to instruct which medication should be used to treat the symptoms and prevent worsening of diseases.

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